Sixteen Proofs of Love
by RowenaR
Summary: Sixteen Proofs of Love project over on . Some stories might be connected, most will probably be not. #6 It's Vietnam 1966 and Colonel John Sheppard goes to visit an old friend.
1. Kiss Away The Pain

Okay, this is all **-leah**'s fault since she persuaded me to take part in this project. Just thought I'd mention that.

Also, it wasn't exactly planned to start off the project with something as _this_ but apparently, I was in a really bad drama queen mood because this kind of wrote itself, after **pingulotta** bestowed her extensive medical knowledge on me. Thanks so much for that :D And so much thanks to **-leah** for bouncing ideas. Every story needs its first step and for this one, I had exceptionally helpers :)

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05. Kiss on the shoulder: desire

**Kiss Away the Pain**

"_I can be your hero, baby.  
I can kiss away the pain.  
I would stand by you forever_

_You can take my breath away."_

_Enrique Iglesias, "Hero"_

It wasn't supposed to go like this.

It never is, sure, but _this_ was _never_ supposed to end in blood and pain. A simple recon mission to a clearly abandoned ship, to see if there was anything to get from that ship and then it turned into a goddamn suicide mission.

She's still not quite sure what happened but suddenly there was a boom and a lurching and a couple smaller booms and suddenly she was alone with Major Lorne. An _unconscious_ Major Lorne. He must have hit his head when one of the smaller explosions had rocked the ship and they'd been cut off from both the bridge and the hatch they came through.

She remembers being hit in the side, too but apart from having the wind knocked out of her once and then a bit of queasiness afterwards she's fine. And all she can do now is sit next to Major Lorne, take care that he doesn't suddenly throw up and choke on his vomit and wait. Laura Cadman was never good with waiting.

It's not that she's freaking out – because Lieutenant Laura Cadman _does not freak out_ – but she's starting to get… restless. Her wrist chrono broke some at some point between the fourth and fifth time she bumped against a wall during an explosion and she can only guess for how long she's been sitting here, hearing the ship around her creak and hiss and if she's not mistaken, they're trundling through space, with no way whatsoever to contact Atlantis. She estimates them stuck here for about thirty minutes.

Fuck, she thinks, if at least they'd get to a radio or to the bridge to stop the trundling or at least had a way of knowing how much oxygen they still have left. Or if fucking Major Lorne would just fucking wake up because seeing him lying there all still – she tells herself the only reason she's leaning towards him and putting a hand under his nose now and then is that it's part of first aid training to check for signs of breathing – is starting to make her feel… desperate.

Okay, maybe not desperate but if she could at least get moving, she'd feel a lot better. She'd be able to ignore the dull pain in her left side because she'd have something to do, something to occupy her, something to make her believe Atlantis is just an FTL jump away.

And she'd stop being worried sick about the guy who's her superior like he was something entirely else. It's not like there's anything between them and it's not like she'd actually want that but honestly, if he'd just wake up and order her around or at least try to create some plan with her, she could go back to convincingly tell herself he's a just a superior.

God, that really… "Cadman?"

Oh. Oh, huh…

"Cadman… you alright?"

Oh for fuck's sake.

She takes a deep breath, trying to ignore the pain that just got a little more intense. Just a bruise, she thinks. You're not going to trouble him over something as insignificant as that. She rolls her head to the side, angling for a deadpan look. "_I_ didn't get a bump to the head, sir."

His reaction is shaking and sounding like he's coughing… oh, wait, he's laughing. That's… a good thing, right? "I can't believe you… holy _shit_." What… In a moment, she scooted over so that she's sitting next to him when he's clutching his head. "Holy shit mother of all headaches…" And just like that he leans away from her, retching his heart out. Amazingly fast thinking on his part, she's got to give him that.

Not that it helped make her cease worrying, though. Headache, vomiting… definitely a concussion. "Sir, are you…"

"Fine, yes. Pretty sure this is a concussion. Not even really bad one, I think." Oh since when did _you_ become a doctor, she nearly asks but he seems to have read her thoughts anyway. "I can still see straight, no double images and I know exactly what happened before I blacked out, despite the headache. Trust me on this, Lieutenant."

She doesn't, which has nothing to do with her not accepting his authority and everything with the very bad feeling that suddenly starts to pool in her stomach. Something about this, she thinks, is going to go horribly wrong. Which is kind of ironic since until now she'd thought it couldn't get much worse than being stuck on a ship out of control with only her concussed CO as company.

"Lieutenant?" She looks back at him. "Think you're up for trying to find a way out of this debris?"

"Sure, sir," she says and gets up carefully. She checked herself for any outward injuries earlier but mindful of Carson's warning that you couldn't trust your body until you didn't try it out in every position you needed to complete the mission.

Okay, so he didn't say it exactly like… _argh_. "Lieutenant?" Shit, the stupid bruise is suddenly giving her some real trouble, making her bend forward and brace a hand on the wall next to her. "Cadman, are you okay?"

For a guy with a concussion, Lorne's startlingly fast on his feet all of a sudden. "I'm… it's just…" God, that _hurts_. Enough that she doesn't even fully realize for a moment that Lorne caught her in his arms, awkwardly embracing her to keep her upright.

"Where does it hurt, Lieutenant?" _Everywhere_? is the first thing she wants to answer but the pain is still taking away the breath she'd need for speaking, so she simply leans against him, pressing her face into his shoulder, her eyes squeezed shut and her breathing labored until she can locate the source of the pain.

"Left…" she takes another breath, not quite able to believe how hard it suddenly seems, "left side. Just a… bruise."

"Don't think so, Lieutenant." Only marginally she realizes that he's gently lowering her on the floor again, her back resting against the wall. When she hears him mumble "Sorry, Lieutenant." she's confused what exactly he's sorry for but then she feels him opening her tac vest and she has to bite her tongueso that she doesn't scream when he makes a particularly jarring move against her side. Then he very, very gently pushes up her uniform shirt. All she hears is a nearly swallowed gasp.

At that, she opens her eyes, wondering why her lids feel so heavy all of a sudden. What she sees in his face… "That bad, huh?"

In a corner of her mind that's still strangely untouched by all that pain and queasiness, she wonders if he's ever been as open as book as right now. Despite the haze of hurt that's starting to overtake her thinking process, she can see clearly that he's at war with himself, until he finally settles with, "I don't think that's just a bruise, Laura."

She blinks. He never called her Laura before. They've been on a lot of missions together, been serving in Atlantis for more than three years, shared a lot of gate control room shifts, saw each other at nearly every rec event during all those years… and he never called her Laura before. For some reason, that's the only thing really making it into her brain.

Until her mind latches unto that other thing he mentioned. She tries to smile. "Looks worse than it feels."

"Laura…" He did it again. She hazily wonders why that is. "I'll have to…"

"Oh _God_."

"I'm sorry, really, I…" Even with all the pain his slight touch to her left side caused, she's still somehow able to detect the somewhat panicky note in his voice. She thinks he sounds as if _he_'d been hurt. "I'm not… Carson but I did listen to his anatomy lessons and that… that doesn't look good. If I'd had to hazard a guess… I think you might have hurt your spleen."

Huh? Since when did he become… oh right, anatomy lessons for off-world qualified personnel. Yeah, she remembers those, too. "Evan…"

Shit.

But it just slipped out and… "What is it?"

"I don't… feel so good." She really doesn't. Until a few seconds ago, it had just been the pain but now there's also dizziness and sweat and she's starting to feel cold, so cold… so…

Something strange happens. Had he been professional until now – except that thing with her first name – there's now some strange look in his face, his eyes, something urgent and shocked that's not exactly helping to make her feel better. She thinks she never saw that kind of look in his face before. This just can't be good.

"No." Huh? Just that one single word and why is he suddenly… hugging… why… "You are not going to die today, Laura." Well, no, she hadn't planned on this exactly and… "Not before I… before we…" She feels him embracing her, hugging her close to him and in a way it's a good thing that she can't feel _more_ pain than she already does because he's embracing her really _tight_ and it's not like she doesn't give her best to do the same to him. "Not today, Laura."

She hears him whispering close to her ear and confusing grips her. Confusion at his tone and the conviction and all that _will_ in his voice and she tries to grip him harder, presses her lips to his shoulder, tries to tell him that she's got that deep, deep _desire_ to do her best, that she will not disappoint him, not before she hasn't found out what he means with "Before I…" and…

"Fuck, you're as white as a sheet and… there's not even a real pulse…" She wonders at that. She's still alive and she tries to tell him so but he's not listening anymore, he's moving her again and after a few painful, labored minutes, she can see the ceiling above her, spinning. "Listen to me, Laura, don't fall asleep. There'll be help soon because we're past our check-in time…"

Help? She's not so sure now if that will be of any use. She can hear Carson in her head, telling them what happens once someone with internal bleeding goes into shock. There's dizziness and nausea and tiredness, so, so much tiredness… "Do _not_ fall asleep on me, Lieutenant, that's an order."

She tries to smile at him, tries to say something but somehow, her lips and tongue won't obey her anymore. There's his face above hers now, starting to blur but she can see _his_ pain and hurt and still hear him, why can she still hear him say, "Hold on, just a little while longer. I just… don't go, Laura. _Don't go_. They'll be here, any minute now…"

Tired. She's so, so tired and she wants to sleep, just sleep and the black is creeping into her vision, just as she hears him say, "Colonel Sheppard? Sir? Did you bring… Lieutenant Cadman… shock… slipping into…"

And everything fades and fades and fades away…


	2. Ghost Moon Sails Among The Clouds

Err, I have no idea how this happened (alright, I do, and it's all Al Stewart's fault!) but suddenly there was this Spanish Civil War bunny and _it wanted to be written_. And I really wanted to make it something else than Lorne/Cadman but they wouldn't let me. It's got very, very minor background implied Sheppard/Weir, though :)

I also realized that I might have been inspired for this by _Condor's Flight_ by **freifraufischer**. If you haven't read this, do. It's one of the best SGA historical AUs I have ever read and I can only recommend it :)

PS.: I might have taken some creative licence with the Browning HP, M1911 and Lee-Enfield mentioned in the story. I tried to research handguns used in the Spanish Civil war but it was almost impossible. Wikipedia doesn't state anything about any of them having been used but from their service dates I gleaned that they might have been used anyway (and I figured that since both Evan and Sheppard are former Army in this, they might have found ways to get ahold of the then used standard sidearm of the US Armed Forces).

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#10 Stumbling: take me in your arms

**Ghost Moon Sails Among the Clouds (Turns the Rifles Into Silver)**

"_The fishing boats go out across the evening water  
Smuggling guns and arms across the Spanish border  
The wind whips up the waves so loud  
The ghost moon sails among the clouds  
Turns the rifles into silver on the border."_

_Al Stewart, "On the Border"_

Come to Spain, his superior officer had said to him. Fight for the Republic, his superior officer had said to him. Do the right thing, his superior officer had said to him.

And here he is, trudging through the light dusting of snow – _snow_, in fucking _Spain_ – on the road to Teruel that's not more than a dirt path, freezing his ass off in the rags he swathed himself in and wondering why the _everloving hell_ he listened to Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard and followed him to a Spain ravaged by civil war.

It's time like this when he's questioning his sanity for following Sheppard through hell and back without a blink and the stares he sends at Sheppard's back would probably have put several holes in him, were they bullets. He just hopes Dr. Weir doesn't see them because for some reason the good doctor seems to have some incurable obsession with getting people to make peace with each other.

Also, she clearly has something going on with Sheppard and he suspects it probably started on the ship that brought all three of them plus a couple other American volunteers for the International brigades to France in late 1936. They're discreet, he's got to give them that but the three of them have been on the road for over a week now with only each other as company and it's not like he's _blind_. Or deaf, for that matter.

Then again, the reason that they're lagging behind the Lincoln-Washington Battalion, their main unit, is that they'd been detached to pick Weir up from an aid station of those Falangistas that she'd been forced to work for after having been captured a few weeks before in a raid they'd made on Weir's last assignment. He'd have been thoroughly alarmed if Sheppard and Weir hadn't shown _any_ attachment whatsoever after _that_.

And anyway… "Ditch," he hears Sheppard suddenly hiss and in the twilight he can see the silhouette of something big on the road. He wastes no time and scrambles down into the ditch next to the dirt road and only his years as an officer of the United States Army prevent him from swearing very loudly. There's nothing so _asqueroso_* as suddenly having your ice cold feet surrounded by ice cold _water_.

There's a warning look from Sheppard that he just answers with rolling his eyes and jerking his head toward the structure on the road they saw ahead. After Sheppard throws Weir a short look that she just confirms with a nod, they make their way forward, careful not to make any noise. Inch by inch… until they hear someone swearing in an impressive array of languages. Very, very loudly.

They're about two yards behind the structure – a positively _ancient_ ambulance car, probably left over from the Great War or something – when Sheppard gestures to Weir to stay here and to him to take the car's right sight. Slowly they climb out of the ditch and he lightly presses his back against the car's right side and inches forward.

Just before he's about to reach for the door, he slowly moves to chamber a round in his M1911 handgun and almost winces at the too audibly loud click. Hoping Sheppard does the same on the other side, he moves to open the car's door with his left hand, his gun ready to level into whoever's face… and suddenly he's seeing stars and pain explodes in his eye and…

_La puta madre._*

For a moment, the only thing he notices is that his world just turned upside down and that he's looking up at the darkening sky. Until he realizes that something ways him down and there's… _hair_ whipping into his face and… _someone pummeling his fucking chest_.

Still having no idea what the _fuck_ just happened he moves the M1911 his right hand still miraculously grips up to bring it down on the furious face staring at him and spitting insults at him to just make it _stop_ but for some reason he will probably never be able to fathom, he sometimes has his arms around his assailant and since he's lucky enough to realize what's going on, he moves to tighten them, keeping his attacker close and rolling him around on the ground on his back…

It's a _girl_.

It's a fucking _chica_ he's got under him and who's staring daggers at him and wriggling around, obviously trying to get rid of him. Her face is smudged all over with dirt and her hair is all tangled up but it's unmistakably a girl he's got pinned to the ground. She keeps trying to shake him off and he's got to admire her endurance if nothing at all.

Then he suddenly gets her fist to his temple and honestly, that's enough. He forces her arms above her face, leaning down until his face is only a few inches away from hers and growls, "_Basta ya, brujita._"* And then he notices that her eyes are brown, hazel really, and the distraction of thinking how odd that is for a ginger nearly gets him knocked out by the ginger he neatly pinned to the ground a moment ago.

In the end, though… it's Dr. Weir who saves him by saying, "Evan… I think she's American." It makes both him and the girl pause.

He blinks and stares at the girl that stares back at him in a way no American girl ever stared at him in his 35 years; defiant, fierce, even with a feral edge. It's so prominent that it nearly overshadows a glimmer in her eyes, or maybe rather a shadow, something that makes them look _old_ and in his bewilderment, he lets go of her arms.

Lethal mistake.

In a matter of seconds, she did _something_ to flip him off her, jumped up and… finds a TT-33 squarely pointed at her face. And here Weir had refused to wear a gun for several months after coming into the country, claiming she was a pacifist. He throws Sheppard a short look from his position on the ground but Sheppard just gives him a minute shake of the head, continuing to point his M1911 at the girl. If this weren't so damn serious, he'd laugh his ass off about that parody of a Western-ish standoff.

As it is… he gets a nice view of the girl's backside… and a leather holster on her right hip with the butt of a semi-automatic sticking out of it. Jesus H. Christ, he could have been _dead_ by now. He could be…

Dr. Weir obviously decided to take the lead again, loosening one hand from the grip around her gun and stretching it out in a pacifying gesture, palm out, "Listen, Miss, I don't want to…"

"Give me back that notebook." If anything, that girl's no coward. Ordering around the woman who's pointing a gun at her certainly took guts. Or a very special brand of insanity. Remembering what he saw in her eyes just a moment ago… well.

For a moment, he wondered what she meant when Weir carefully moves her free hand to grab behind her, towards the seat inside the car and he realizes that during his struggle with the girl, she and Sheppard must have used to the time to secure the car. He half expects the girl to jump forward and tackle Weir but for some reason, she stays where she is, her whole stature almost frozen.

Weir pulls her hand forward again, with a tattered little book in it and holds it out to the girl, taking down her gun a notch that he thinks is pretty much unwise. "Listen, we don't want you anything bad. We're on our way to Teruel, just passing through and we were just being cautious."

"How do I know you're not going there to support the fascists?" Because they're deep enough into Republican territory that they'd have to be very suicidal fascists, he nearly reminds the girl but a warning look from Sheppard tells him to let Weir handle this.

The good doctor, in turn nods. "You're right, you can't." Oh great, why don't you just handle her the ammunition she… "You'll have to trust us." It's just getting better and better.

"Why aren't you with the Lincoln-Washington in Aragon if you aren't part of the bad guys?" Good question, actually.

"We had business to attend to before we could go to Teruel." Ah, and now Sheppard decided to join into the conversation. He wishes he wouldn't have.

Because that just seemed to have made the girl more distrustful. "What kind of business?"

"Ours." Typical Sheppard answer and before he knows it, a snort escaped him and… yeah, of course now everyone is looking at him and he takes that moment of broken tension to pick up his ass from the frozen ground.

Everyone is still looking at him and he wonders what's so interesting about him. Anyway, now that they're all looking at him, maybe they'll also listen to him. "How about we just agree not to shoot each other for a moment so we can solve this like civilized people, huh?"

That seems to amuse Weir because she obviously can't hide a smile. The girl – God, it's high time to do an introduction since he possible can't go on calling her "the girl" any longer – looks at him like she thinks he lost his mind and Sheppard seems ready to groan… but then the ginger _brujita_ says, "I'm pretty sure _civilized people_ is the one thing you won't be able to find here."

He's pretty sure it was supposed to sound flippant or maybe joking but it came out with a hint of cynicism, an edge of something someone her age – he thinks her to be around her mid-twenties – shouldn't know about. He wonders where she's been with her ambulance car in this war to sound like that.

It is, however, Weir again who surprises him. "Two years ago I was a doctor in a hospital in the Philippines." Huh, what… "I'm Dr. Elizabeth Weir. This here is John Sheppard. He used to command a US Army unit in Guam, with Evan Lorne over there as his second in command. We came here because we wanted to help the Republicans against Franco. John and Evan were on their way to Teruel when they received the message that… they needed to take care of something else first."

"That business you mentioned?" The girl still looks weary of all of them but he thinks some of the tension in her body has gone.

Weir nods. "Yes. Now… who did we have the honor to meet?"

There's an interesting transformation in the girl from weary over hesitant to an obvious attempt at some higher level civility when she extends her hand to Weir and says, "Laura Cadman. I was supposed to ferry that piece of… that car over to Teruel from Albacete but it broke down a few minutes before you came around."

He does notice that she never told them what she did before he came her but then again, everyone's entitled to their secrets. As long as they don't kill him, that is. But somehow he has a feeling that her secrets are rather killing _her_.

"So you're an ambulance driver?" Weir asks and it really is amazing how the girl… _Miss_ _Cadman_ seems to react to her.

"Yes, ma'am." Interesting response. Then she looks closely at them. "But if you were hoping to hitch a ride…"

"No, we'd understand if you…"

"…you'll all have to give me a hand with that man-of-war behind me." Sheppard, Weir and he must have all have the same idea since he sees the confusion he feels. Miss Cadman must have seen it, too. "What? I could use a hand and if anyone wants to try something, I know how to handle a Browning HP."

There probably was supposed to be levity and a bit of sarcasm and there was… almost burying a hardness that tells him she didn't came here yesterday. He's starting to be very, very glad that Weir and Sheppard are handling this because something about this Miss Cadman doesn't sit right with him.

It's not that he doesn't trust her, it's just that… she's young and American and her accent sounds like she's from somewhere around the D.C. area. She shouldn't look older than she most probably is and sound harder than the usual young American woman from the D.C. area. For some reason, that's more than he can deal with right now, right here. Something in him he hasn't felt for a long time – since his divorce five years ago, to be precise – stirs when he looks at her. He chooses not to think about that too closely.

"Lorne?" Huh? "When you're done gathering wool, how about you start helping Miss Cadman there with seeing what exactly's wrong with her car?" Err… what? "Your dad owns a garage. I'm sure you picked up a thing or two from him. Now get moving."

Oh of course. His father owns a garage in a San Francisco suburb, so he _must_ be an experienced car mechanic and… and there's no way he'll get out of this now, judging from Sheppard's look. He nods, glad that the twilight and the beret he's wearing help to conceal what he's thinking right now. "Yes, sir."

So he trudges over to the car's now open hood, registering that the car is a British model by glancing into the cab. Just fucking great. British, ancient and… "I don't need your help." Even better. He glares at her.

"You don't even know if I'm _here_ to help…"

"Didn't you listen to what I just said? I. Don't. Need. Your. Help." Of course she'd say that. And of course she'd _keep_ saying that. She's a young woman on her way from Albacete to Teruel, all on her own, with only a Browning HP and a Lee-Enfield he'd seen lying on the passenger seat as protection. She probably needs to tell herself she's got everything under control constantly.

"Look, I'm here because my superior officer just ordered me to…"

"Are you being deliberately stupid, Sunshine Boy? I just said I don't need your help," yes, he heard that and… "And if you'd let me finish my line, I could tell you that I don't need your help because this car officially surrendered to the cold. There's nothing we can do to get it running again before nightfall and trust me, you don't want to be sitting in that thing when I'm driving it over a dirt road in the dark."

Good God. That's probably the longest speech he ever heard from a woman he just met. He tries to say something but his throat feels strangely dry and he finds himself clearing his throat for a second attempt but before he can get his tongue to obey him, Sheppard's back, looking first at him, then at the motor and then at Miss Cadman. "So, no chance we'll get anywhere right now, Miss Cadman?"

He's pretty sure Miss Cadman just rolls her eyes at that, then she turns around to Sheppard and tells him with a kind of tried patience in her voice, "No, sir, we won't. I've got two cots and a couple blankets in the back so we shouldn't freeze to death tonight. I can't give you a ride right now, but I could manage shelter." Why is it, he wonders, that Sheppard gets tried patience and _he_ gets _hostility_?

Sheppard nods at that and appoints him as first watch. They decide to put the guard into the driver's cabin and agree on a regular intervals of getting out and checking for anything unusual. Since for some reason he has the strong desire for some quiet and peace but just _knows_ he won't be able to sleep anyway, he doesn't mind being first watch and after some fussing around with cots and blankets, he's left with nothing to do but stare into the night that has finally fallen and try to stay warm in his layers of ragtag uniform and sodden boots.

Unfortunately for him, it's a silent night, so he's left with only himself for company for several hours which is never a good thing. In fact, by the end of his watch, he's ready to admit that he's _terrible_ company and being allowed in the back and able to change out of his boots and socks isn't the only reason he's mighty relieved when he hears Sheppard tap against the window next to him.

Wordlessly, they change stations and he trudges around the ambulance's back. He climbs in and the first thing he does when he closed the door behind him is the aforementioned getting out of the blasted boots and socks and it's such a relief to be wearing something _dry_ again that at first he doesn't realize that Miss Cadman isn't lying on one of the cots and that a strange sound is filling the room.

He blinks and in the light of the two candles they must have found somewhere and stuck to the floor, he sees her sitting with her back to the wall on the far side, her legs drawn up to her chest, her head on her knees and a blanket around her shoulders and over her head… shaking. And he realizes that the sound he heard is the chattering of her teeth. He sighs silently as he sits down on the cot opposite a sleeping Dr. Weir.

"Miss Cadman?"

No answer for a few seconds, then muffled from beneath the blanket, "Don't call me that."

Oh _come on_. He can't believe this is happening. "What else do you want me to call you then?"

She's silent again and he suspects it's more to compose herself and not let him hear her teeth chattering through speaking than actually having to think about her answer. Then, "Camarada Paloma." Really? Her nom de guerre is "Dove"? Is that supposed to be some kind of joke? "Or Laura."

Alright. Fine. "Okay, _Laura_," because he sure as hell ain't calling anyone a comrade, no offense to the commies or anything, it just isn't his thing, "why don't you get up and take the cot? I don't mind sleeping on the floor and…"

"I'm not tired." Oh right, uh-huh, sure.

He can't help but snort. "I seriously doubt that."

"Don't you dare condescend me." What… he thinks he never heard anyone sound so… _pissed off_ in a very low and calm voice. Again he wonders what she must have seen to get so angry so fast over something decidedly trivial.

Then again, he's pretty sure he sure as hell doesn't want to know what it was.

He takes a deep breath. "Sorry, I just… Look, you must be freezing to death down there. Why don't you…"

"Come up to you for a cozy little "snuggle"? You bet your life I won't." Jesus H. Christ what did he _do_ to her?

Or…

Or rather… what did _someone_ do to her? Suddenly, the fact that she's a woman among so many men at Albacete and other Republican posts and that war is terrible and that it makes terrible person out of a lot of people hits him like a slap in the face. If anyone… He swallows. "Look, Laura, I wasn't trying to… to insinuate anything, I just don't want a fellow soldier freeze to death. Just get up there and take my place here, I promise I'll be off the cot before you touch it."

She doesn't say anything and he thinks that _this_ time it _is_ because she's thinking about his offer. If he were honest, he'd have to admit that he's _dying_ to know who made her so afraid of men that she'd rather freeze on the floor than get on a cot as soon as a man is present but he knows asking her would be a very bad idea.

"Alright." For the first time during their exchange she looks up and even in the candlelight he can see her frown as soon as she looks at him. He wonders… "And before you ask: no, I haven't been attacked by anyone. I just had one too many stupid offers yesterday."

Slowly, he nods, ridiculously relieved that no one harmed her that way – or any other, really – and starts to get up when he sees her frowning again and then purse her lips several times before she says, "Actually… I think it's pretty stupid of _you_ to want to freeze down here, too." Uh-huh. So…? "So… if you don't mind, you can stay on the cot."

Yeah, well. For a moment, he wonders how much of this will have made it to Sheppard once he and Weir change stations because he got to know Weir as a very light sleeper. But then again… Sheppard knows not to stick in his nose into affairs that aren't his own and he doesn't think Weir's that much different, so he just nods at Miss Cadman… Laura and she gets up, pads over to him and sits down next to him… surprisingly close, actually.

She doesn't waste time, immediately adopts the same stance as before on the floor and pulls her blanket around herself as tightly as possible. He can still hear her teeth chattering, anyway. He sighs. "Laura… I don't think that blanket's going to do anything good. I'd rather you had mine than you sitting here and… you know."

His sister once told him that the reason why he always got himself attached to the wrong girls is his chivalry. She said it when he found his first girlfriend sharing her apple with a boy from a year higher up and she said it when he caught his ex-wife kissing one of the Lieutenants in his company and she said it about basically every other girl he'd had in between. She said he needed to become wary of all those girls that accepted it without qualms and with a sweet smile and fluttering their eyelashes.

She never said anything about the girls that would say, "Sounds like a pretty stupid idea to me, Sunshine Boy."

He can't help but grin and he hopes to God she didn't see that because that would probably just result in another black eye or something. "_My_ teeth are _not_ chattering, _Laura_." She just shrugs and… that's it. Alright. He shrugs, too and leans back and closes his eyes and tries to fall asleep.

And after about ten minutes it turns out that she's not only freezing but also having nightmares because little groans and whimpers are starting to mix with the chattering and shaking and he feels his chest rise in a long drawn silent sigh. Oh good heavens. "Laura?" he whispers but she doesn't react so he tries it a bit louder. "Laura?" It takes him another three attempts until she wakes up. No jerking or gasping, just opening her eyes and looking too old, too hard, too tired to be anywhere near the ages he estimates her to be.

There's an urge in him, an idea, something he feels he just _has_ to do even though he knows he _shouldn't_ be doing it. The thing that convinces him to do it anyway is the fact that Laura puts her forehead on his shoulder, as if she's too tired of holding up her head.

Gently, he pries the blanket loose from her fingers and scoots close to her. He moves to cover her with half his blanket and pulls part of hers over himself. Then he mimics her earlier move, drawing his legs up on the cot. All throughout his move, she stays silent, almost but not quite frozen, so he attempts the last part of his idea with care, precision and even more gentleness than before as he puts his arm around her shoulder.

It takes her a moment – in which he half expects her to get back to her belligerent violent tactics from their first encounter – but then he suddenly feels her relaxing against his side and he'd be lying if he said he didn't feel _himself_ relax, either.

She doesn't say anything, just puts her head on his shoulder and he draws her a little closer to him and when he feels her breathing grow regular and deep next to him, he realizes the most startling, strangest thing.

He realizes that this moment here in Spain, on a dirt road to probably another bloody battle with a wild little ambulance driver he hadn't even known until a few hours ago by his side is the first time since setting foot on European soil, maybe since years ago, that he feels like everything's going to be alright in the end. Even if their first meeting wasn't exactly auspicious. Even if she gave him a real nice shiner. Even if this is war and they're heading into a battle that might get even worse than the Jarama.

If he can just manage not to lose her before he even really got to know her, he knows things will be alright in the end. He just knows they will.

*_asqueroso_ – disgusting

*_La puta madre_ – fucking shit

*_Basta ya, brujita. _– That's enough, little witch.

Err, I have no idea how this happened (alright, I do, and it's all Al Stewart's fault!) but suddenly there was this Spanish Civil War bunny and _it wanted to be written_. And I really wanted to make it something else than Lorne/Cadman but they wouldn't let me. It's got very, very minor background implied Sheppard/Weir, though :)

I also realized that I might have been inspired for this by _Condor's Flight_ by **freifraufischer**. If you haven't read this, do. It's one of the best SGA historical AUs I have ever read and I can only recommend it :)

PS.: I might have taken some creative licence with the Browning HP, M1911 and Lee-Enfield mentioned in the story. I tried to research handguns used in the Spanish Civil war but it was almost impossible. Wikipedia doesn't state anything about any of them having been used but from their service dates I gleaned that they might have been used anyway (and I figured that since both Evan and Sheppard are former Army in this, they might have found ways to get ahold of the then used standard sidearm of the US Armed Forces).


	3. Kennedy Made Him Believe

Apparently, I have a thing for Foreign Wars AUs. I'm sorry. This time, it's all The Lumineers' fault (cf. their song "Charlie Boy", the one quoted at the beginning). It's _also_ an AU to my _Protect and Survive_ and _Minor Characters_ verse so if there are any OC names not sounding familiar... you probably haven't read any of those stories, yet. I hope it still makes sense and I hope I found the right way to work with the Vietnam War. I'd be _very_ happy about constructive criticism.

Also, language warning. It might be the Sixties, but Laura refused to be a lady just for once.

* * *

#16 Racking your hair: I can't be with you

**Kennedy Made Him Believe (We Could Do Much More)**

"_Charlie boy, don't go to war, first born in forty-four  
Kennedy made him believe we could do much more_

_Oooh_  
_Lillian, don't hang your head, love should make you feel good_  
_In uniform you raised a man, who volunteered to stand."_

_The Lumineers, "Charlie Boy"_

If all she ever did was sit here and smoke and drink and flirt, she thinks as she crushes her cigarette stub into the nearest ash tray, just to light the next only ten seconds later, Vietnam in 1966 wouldn't be so bad, actually. Okay, so you have the heat and the humidity and the mosquitoes and the VC attacks practically every morning on the ride from the billet to the base. But if she'd just stay at Le Van Loc officers club on Ton Son Nhut Air Base permanently, 'Nam would be a pretty fine place indeed.

Unfortunately, she's Lieutenant Laura Cadman, Women's Army Corps, here with MACV and she takes pictures and writes stuff for a living, travelling all over the country. And six months into her twelve months tour, she wonders why the hell she ever thought volunteering for a spot in this hellhole would be a good idea. Not for the first time, either, mind you. Humorless, she snorts, then takes a far too long draw from her fresh cig.

Mom would be horrified; seeing her sitting here, smoking and drinking, surrounded by _men_ without a proper chaperone, in _trousers_, she thinks and then promptly has to snort derisively again. Mom would probably stop speaking with her, if she saw her here. If she hadn't done so already three years ago when she joined the WAC on a whim. Well, that had been a one of a kind…

"How often do I have to tell you that that's a really filthy habit, huh?" Right. And there comes Ms. Career Air Force Nurse Captain Maureen Reece herself.

She turns around, leveling a withering look she had twenty-five years to practice on her bigger brothers on the woman in the immaculate Air Force uniform in front of her. "What exactly? The drinking or the smoking?"

Reece rolls her eyes as she climbs on the bar stool next to hers. "The cynicism." Then she turns to the bartender and orders her usual.

Mh. She frowns. "Where's your escort?"

That makes Reece snort and wave her hand in the direction of a table full of Navy nurses over from Da Nang. "Doing the rounds." She follows the gesture, sees Reece's pilot, Major Thomas Moore standing over the table and flirting with a force equal to an atomic bomb explosion. Next to him is a guy in his late thirties, maybe early forties, looking mildly annoyed. Ah, yeah, that would be Chief Warrant Officer Second Class Simon DeLisle. She narrows her eyes a little and has another look at the pair.

And yeah… she can see the telltale signs. She turns back to Reece. "Hard shift?"

Reece nods, taking the cigarette from her hand and taking a deep drag herself, then handing it back to her. "Category Five." Which means that they won't see Moore and his co-pilot at the bar until they made it to the Red Cross table in the back.

It's their usual routine, as she came to learn when she did one of her first in-country pieces for _Stars & Stripes_ on Moore, DeLisle and Reece and their C-7 Caribou MedEvac plane five months back. Reece goes straight to the bar, orders a shot of straight whiskey, no ice, Moore goes to flirt with everything female on two legs in the room and DeLisle takes care that he doesn't overstep any bounds until the two join them at the bar.

And usually… usually, they get joined sooner or later by one of Moore's Academy buddies, a Pararescue chopper pilot going by the name of Evan Lorne and sometimes even his straight-as-raw-spaghetti-laced co-pilot, Lieutenant Joe Simmons. Usually. When Lorne and Simmons aren't off the map, just one step away from officially being listed as MIA.

She shakes her head and exhales the smoke she just drew in, kind of wishing she hadn't refused the weed one of the Army Nurses – Keller, yeah, that's her name – she sometimes hangs out with had offered her. She could use a good old-fashioned high, the way they're saying is all the rage at colleges back stateside, right now. At least it would keep her damn hands from shaking. "Still haven't heard anything from them, have you?"

Putting out her stub, she shakes her head. The temptation to light another one is nearly insurmountable but it would be her tenth today and even she knows that she needs to give her lungs a break now and then if she wants to keep up her Army career. "No." She grimaces as she takes a sip of her gin and tonic. "Intelligence threatened to permanently ban me from their ops room if I kept snooping in, shooting me on sight and all."

They both laugh but it sounds hollow, even Reece's. She knows that Reece likes Lorne and even goody-two-shoes Simmons. And if she's honest, she does, too. A lot, at least in Lorne's case. She knows it's stupid, especially because she's pretty sure that Lorne can't stand her and because she's still trying to convince herself that _she_ can't stand him, either.

It's all his fault, anyway. A week in-country, she was supposed to get to Da Nang, take pictures of Navy Nurses volunteering in a Vietnamese orphanage. Her original ride had taken off without her and it had been hitching a ride on a truck convoy through the jungle or with a slightly cranky Pararescue pilot in a chopper. The moment she'd climbed on board the Jolly Green Giant, she'd wished she'd taken the jungle trip.

Even today she's pretty sure that the rocky flying Lorne had presented her with had had nothing do to with the VC leveling their AAA on the chopper and everything with making her feel as unwelcome as possible. She'd always prided herself on never getting airsick… until that day. She still shudders at how thoroughly _sick_ she'd been after that flight and she still wonders how to get back at him for that.

After that, she'd thought she'd never see him again – Ton Son Nhut is big enough to stay out of each other's way for an entire year, after all – and good riddance but somehow he'd managed to be there when she needed a ride so often that she'd started to wonder what on God's green earth she'd done to receive _such_ bad karma. And _then_ he'd turned out to be an Academy buddy of Moore's and it had been practically impossible to stay out of his way, if she wanted to keep seeing the one woman she'd managed to establish an actual connection with in this goddamned country. Reece still refuses to have any other than professional contact with the Army Nurses and oh, don't get started about the Red Cross girls in her earshot, seriously.

And now the idiot has gone and made VC fodder out of him and his crew. Damned, _damned_ idiot. "Laura?" Mh? "Are you still with us?"

Um, what… "'Course she isn't. Don't you see that dreamy, far-away look in her eyes?"

Oh. Oh just great. Moore's done with "the rounds" and doesn't have anything better to do than comment on her zoning out. Which she totally didn't do, nuh-uh. "Tom."

Well, look at that. Two days ago it was still "sir" and "Captain" and suddenly it's "Tom"? She raises her eyebrows. "Which memo did I miss, guys?"

Confused looks all around… except on DeLisle's face, as usual. Guy's much too perceptive for his own good, she's sure of that. If there's _anyone_ who knows what's going on on the entire _base_, then it's Simon "Air America" DeLisle. Scuttlebutt has it both he and Moore flew for the CIA for _years_ and still no one, not even Lorne has outright denied it to her. So she figures it must be true. And if one of them _is_ a spy, it's _gotta_ be DeLisle.

"What _exactly_ are you referring to, Lieutenant?" She's pretty sure Moore knows the answer but for the hell of it she decides to play along.

Anything to keep her from wondering where Lorne is and why his absence makes her hands shake and wish for dope. "Oh, you know… _Tom_."

She can see a tiny grin on DeLisle's face and it _might_ be the lighting but is there a _blush_ on Reece's face? Moore, for his part… "You got a problem with that… _Lieutenant_?"

She knows she shouldn't but she just can't help it. She giggles. Outright, honest to God giggles. And even if it does sound a little hysterical, it feels good to giggle, let out some of that nervous energy that's been building up ever since Lorne didn't come back from his sortie three days ago. It was supposed to be a quick and dirty extraction of a two truck convoy out of Nha Trang Air Base that got caught in enemy fire on their ride back to Da Nang.

Some personnel paper-pusher guy from administration and for some reason or other, getting the orders to go out there had Lorne in such a tizzy that he didn't even say good-bye before dashing off to the helipad. Reece and her pilot guys had been off on a MedEvac flight and by the time they'd been back, she'd been at her billet, desperately trying to fall asleep. She…

"Hey. Hey, Earth to Cadman!" Huh? She blinks, realizing Moore is waving his hand in front of her face.

She shakes her head, suddenly feeling like it's all too loud in here, too full of tomorrow we might die so let's make the hell out of it tonight, and she nearly gasps when she says, "I'm… I'm sorry, I need a bit of air. Be right back, guys, just a minute." And with that, she clambers off her bar stool, leaving the MedEvac trio behind that's probably gaping at her as she pushes her way to the exit…

_Holy Mother of God_.

For a moment, just a tiny moment, she thinks it _has_ to be an illusion but then she remembers that she only had half a glass of gin and tonic and no other drugs and when she sees him standing right in front of her, in the middle of the door and brings herself to acknowledge that he's really _there_, suddenly she remembers all the rides she hitched on his chopper and the evenings they spent at the Le Van Loc and the one night they spent at Nha Trang when he told her about his divorce and she told him about being an eternal disappointment to her parents and she realized that maybe, after all, Evan Lorne wasn't such a bad guy at all.

Actually, that was the night she realized that maybe, after all, Evan Lorne was one of the very, very _good_ guys. The kind of guy she usually tried to avoid because she just couldn't help fall in love with them.

She blinks. He looks terrible. Like he came in directly from the helipad, blood and oil stained flight suit and all. _Blood_. Blood on his flight suit. She blinks again and for some reason the thought of Evan Lorne with blood on his flight suit makes her brush past him in a wild fury, just in the moment that he opens his mouth to say, "Laura…"

Later, she will never be able to say why _exactly_ she just did that but the thing is, she just couldn't stand there a minute longer and look at the blood stains – and even in the bad lighting she could be _sure_ that it was blood, she's been around medical units enough to recognize how it looks on fatigues – and then go on talking to him as if nothing ever happened. To be honest, until now, she never even allowed herself to think of him as wearing anything else than spotless fatigues or dress uniforms or flight suits, no matter how long the flight was and how hot and humid it was.

Outside, it's night and the only lighting comes from the helipad and when she has recovered well enough to be more like her usual self than a heaving, half-sobbing mess, she realizes that there's still a Jolly Green Giant on the pad, looking badly shot up. Bullet holes all over its hull, the rotors curiously drooping to one side, a gaggle of mechanics trying to move it out of the LZ.

For a moment, she actually wonders who of the pilots was stupid enough to get themselves shot up like that by the VC, until she realizes that this is Orion. Lorne's bird. Stupid bird with a stupid star constellation name instead of something _normal_ like Lola or Betty or whatever.

Oh no, Major Evan Lorne _had_ to go and be _different_ and she tries very hard to stay mad at him for whatever reason instead of remembering how he told her that he'd joined the Air Force because he'd wanted to be as close to the stars as he could, because he'd wanted to be a fighter pilot and how it stung when they put him in a helicopter pilot slot. That night at Nha Trang had truly been remarkable.

She takes a deep breath, takes a few steps towards the helipad, through the Heliport gate, feeling a little lost. After a few more steps, she finds herself sitting down on some crate or other, still watching the mechanics struggle with the damaged Jolly Green Giant. Whatever happened in the last three days, it must have involved a lot of shooting and pain and blood.

Not that Lorne's usual sorties don't involve a lot of shooting and pain and blood, mind you. But something… is different about this one. Okay, for one, usually the bullets don't find the bird en masse like that and two, she's pretty sure the rotors never looked askew like that. But that's not the thing that… shocked her.

What really got to her was the look on Lorne's face when he stood in that doorway. It might have been the lighting but now that she thinks back she thinks she saw… weariness in his eyes. Not the usual 'Nam weariness that you get here sooner or later, that sometimes makes it hard to get up in the morning and stop drinking in the evening but a bone deep, painful exhaustion, like something happened that drained him of all the energy that usually gets him going.

It's a little scary how well she knows him after six months of being his passenger now and then. She got to know his entire crew, yes, but Lorne… well. She knows that when he's particularly pissed off with something she did or said, his flying gets rockier and she knows how he likes his alcohol – straight, no-nonsense and only when he's not on duty or on call. She knows her smoking disgusts him – there's been more than one occasion when he took the cigarette right from her hand and put it out, apparently totally not impressed by her fuming and glaring – and she knows that she's the only reporter, Army or otherwise, he lets hitch a ride on his bird. She knows they actually keep an extra canteen of water on their bird because she's practically infamous for never filling up on water when she should.

Damn, she thinks, something's not right here. Something's definitely very, very wrong. Something…

"I'm pretty sure smoking is absolutely forbidden at the heliport."

What the… she didn't even notice that she lit up that tenth cigarette, after all. And she didn't even realize that _Evan Lorne just crept up on her_. She _almost_ drops the cigarette but remembers just in time how those things like to turn into hard currency in times of war – her father had a few interesting stories about that, especially about his time in Germany in late 1945 – and tries to level another withering glare at him. "What are you going to do, sir? Call the cops?"

She shouldn't have talked to him like that, even when he has no part of her chain of command whatsoever but something about him always brings out the worst in her, like she _wants_ him to detest her. And sometimes she suspects that it's the same for him. Tonight, however… he just sighs and waves his hand at her. "Scoot over, will you?"

Surprised, she moves a little to her right and he sits down. Without further ado, he takes the cigarette from her hand – she just _hates_ how little resistance she is able to muster up, every damn time – but instead of throwing it on the ground and putting it out like he usually does, he takes a nice long drag himself. She nearly expects him to keel over coughing, seeing as she could have sworn that a guy like Lorne never even _thought_ about lighting himself one but he just sits there, blowing out the smoke and staring at the mechanics who managed to find a truck to help them tow his bird over to maintenance.

After a fairly long break of just sitting there and staring he says, "So no dope, after all."

Oh just great. Of course he had to go there. She has never even touched the damn stuff and everyone still believes she smokes it like Lucky Strikes. She glares at him, snatching away the cig from his fingers. "Yeah, surprise, sometimes even I know how to behave."

He just raises his eyebrow, almost as if he's surprised at her reaction but even in the harsh lighting out here she can see that weird exhaustion in his eyes again when he tells her, "Pity. I could have used some."

Not sure how serious he just was – people would never believe her but even she isn't above admitting that Lorne has his moments of pretty good humor – she doesn't answer right away. And in the end, that damn passive-aggressive streak wins again. "You could always ask your CO."

It's not that she does it on purpose, really. It's just that she can't help it. She _knows_ that Lorne is loyal to his CO, whatever the man's faults are – and according to the rumor mill, there are many, many of them – and it's really a bad idea to insult that guy to Lorne's face. But it just makes Lorne laugh a little without humor and say, "Don't believe everything they tell you about Sheppard."

It's amazing, she thinks, how a man who'd berate her for smoking and order the barkeep to stop giving her alcohol after that one assignment that nearly got her killed and that she really just wanted to fucking drink away would be so adamant in defending the guy who's probably still an officer only because he saved some brass guy's life back in World War II or maybe Korea or something. She takes a drag from her cigarette and moves just in time to bring it out of his range when he reaches for it again. "What about that thing with the State Department officer?"

He snorts and crooks his finger to beckon her to give him the cig. When she hands it over unwillingly, he says, "Okay, you could believe _that_."

You know, it would be a lie if she said that his answer doesn't surprise her. Because whoa, it absolutely does. Of all the things people tell about Sheppard, she'd thought that an ongoing love affair with State Department officer Whatshername – Weird or Wire or… yes, Elizabeth Weir – was about one of the last things to be true.

Or maybe it's not an affair because State Department officers just don't strike her as the kind of people who'd _have_ something as sordid as a love affair, most of all not with the black sheep of the US Air Force. So she finds absolutely _nothing_ to reply and they just sit there, next to each other, sharing the cig and again, she wonders what made Lorne abandon his usual self and hang out with _her_ of all people, probably the antithesis to everything he values in a woman or something.

And damn her curiosity, professional or otherwise but she really, _really_ wants to know what the hell went down so after a few more moments of silence, she attempts to sneak up on him. "How's your crew?"

"Holding it together, I guess," he says and she wonders why they aren't here as well. Usually, Lorne's crew – aside from Simmons, there are two Sergeants, Meyers the medic and McPherson, the crew chief – are thick as thieves and she's pretty sure that if Lorne were a bit more off the rulebook, he'd have attempted to smuggle his Sergeants into Le Van Loc at least twice now. She also has never seen him walk right into the club after a sortie before. Usually, he takes his time, doing post-flight, debriefing, making sure his crew's okay. Something…

Oh, this is starting to get really ridiculous. She huffs. "Okay, spill it."

That gets her a rather uncomprehending look. "Spill what… _Lieutenant_?"

Ah, playing dirty, that one she knows. Reminding them of their difference in rank as a diversionary tactic. Yeah, she can work with that. "What happened out there? You were supposed to be back three days ago…"

"Have you been _counting_, Cadman?" Dammit, he's not supposed to be amused by this. "Good God, you _have_ been counting." Not. Funny. "I can't believe it. Moore was _right_. You really _were_ pestering Intelligence…"

Alright, that's it. She's not going to sit around her listening to him ridiculing her. "Good night, _sir_. I really don't have to…"

"Hey!" Oh. Oh no. She's _not_ going to… "Hey… Laura. I didn't mean to… I'm sorry."

It's funny, actually. It's not even Evan Lorne of all people saying sorry to her, it's that he uses her first name. It's only the second time ever, after that weird moment in the doorway and somehow that actually makes her turn around, albeit with expectantly raised eyebrows and her arms folded in front of her chest. He rubs his neck. "Look, I just… I always thought… well."

What? What did he always think? If she thought she hated him for making her puke her guts out after that first flight, she apparently was wrong. _Very_ wrong. Because she _really_ hates him for making her turn around with sounding so unlike himself, so… so lost.

And maybe that's why she doesn't do her thing, doesn't go on asking him and prodding him about what he meant, just walks back and sits down, careful to keep the least bit distance between them because somehow, she's starting to feel unable to control herself.

Again, they're sitting next to each other for a while, without speaking, just finishing that cig and milking it for what it's worth, until he says, "Charlie. Charlie Williamson, that was his name." She frowns, not sure what to say to that when she notices how his tight his hands are clutching each other. "My brother-in-law." Still not getting it – or maybe refusing to get it – she makes a kind of helpless gesture with her hands and he keeps going on, in a voice that makes her wonder if he realizes that she's still here. "The personnel guy we were supposed to get out from under enemy fire."

Oh.

_Oh_.

"Evan, I…"

He lets it pass, her slip into calling him by his first name, probably not even noticing it. "Did you know that they're already calling our Academy class the first class to fight and die in Vietnam?" She shakes her head, for some reason dumbstruck and he gives her another humorless laugh. "Moore, Charlie and I… we were what my sister likes to call the class of 1959's Golden Trio. We were supposedly the best, the brightest… and Charlie wasn't even supposed to be here. The damn idiot actually _volunteered_."

She doesn't like the direction where this is headed, doesn't like how desperate he sounds, how cynical, how helpless, how so not like himself. "If you don't want to talk about it…"

"My sister and he, they're having their second kid, any day now. He got in-country three months ago. He didn't have to go. They don't need so many personnel people over here but he said he couldn't let Moore and me do our part and sit back stateside on his ass and do nothing. Can you believe that?" Actually, she can. Lorne and Moore, they're both top at what they're doing in 'Nam and she can even imagine what it must feel like to be the one left behind, the one to be told "Hey, we don't need you, you can stay home, it's all good".

She clenches her hands, afraid she'll reach out to take his if she doesn't control them. "What happened?"

He takes a deep breath, almost looking as if he just remembered that he's in Vietnam and that she's sitting next to him and that he was supposed to tell her where he was in the last three days. "The chopper was downed. By the time we got there, only three people were still alive and we tried to get them out by hovering and winching them up but the VC shooters got lucky and we had to emergency land in a clearing nearby. They nicked a fuel line and we nearly went down in a blaze of glory."

Oh.

Oh _God_.

He'd nearly exploded with his chopper and she'd never gotten to tell him… tell him…

Tell him a great big heap of bullshit, yes. Something she won't ever tell him because if she's honest, she can't even articulate it to herself, let alone anyone else. "But you didn't?"

"But we didn't," he agrees and goes back to talking about the landing, in a kind of storyteller voice she only knows from that one night in Nha Trang and thought – _hoped_ – she'd never hear again. "We got to the clearing and Simmons and Meyers got to the convoy to get the survivors to us while McPherson and I went to defend the chopper and try to get reinforcements."

"Which, apparently, didn't work."

He snorts. "Nope. Between us and the convoy trucks, we didn't have even one functional radio left."

Well. That actually explains a couple things. "So what did you do?"

He shrugs, trying to look nonchalant. "Kept trying to defend the perimeter, keep the wounded alive and patch up the bird."

Right. "And… that worked?"

Now he rolls his eyes, gesturing to the chopper that now nearly arrived at the maintenance shed. "Course it did. We could get the radio operational after a couple hours and at first we thought we'd get rescued but apparently, all they could manage was have a bird drop us a box of spare parts and medical supplies." He snorts again, but this time there's actual humor to it, to her surprise. "Okay, that and err… that."

For a moment, she struggles to recognize the item in his hand – a flat, quadrangular little package – until it clicks and she seriously hopes that he can't see how her face is heating up. Three years in the Army and six months at war and she still can't help blushing at a condom. Thank God the face he makes is hilarious enough that she can cover up her rather virginal reaction with giggling and saying, "Sheppard did the drop, didn't he?"

Chuckling, he nods and packs away the condom into one of his leg pockets. "He did. Said he thought he wasn't sure how many patches we'd need for all the busted lines and that he had to improvise. But knowing Sheppard…" He shrugs and grins.

And then, from one moment to the next, all the levity they just experienced for one wonderful moment is gone and there's the exhaustion and the despair back and he almost chokes on the words when he says, "Charlie's dead, Laura. He was alive when we found them but he just… how am I gonna explain that to my sister? How am I gonna explain that to my _nephews_?"

She has no idea why he came to her with that, why he didn't talk about it with his crew, with Moore, with just about _anyone_ else but here he is and he's quite clearly in pain and even though some liked to call her the Iron Maiden at college because she refused to see it as the quickest way to make a satisfying match and actually wanted to get an education and even though Reece keeps accusing her of being way too cynical for a twenty-five-year-old, she _does_ have feelings and she _does_ have feelings for Evan Lorne and that's probably why she decides to throw the rulebook out the window and hug him right here on their crate at the edge of the helipad.

There's no reacting at first but after a few seconds she feels him clutching at her, burying his face in her neck and she realizes that this is the first time ever she sees Major Evan Lorne lose his cool. Flying through a hail of bullets and being chased by RPGs never even scratched at his calm and despite his tendency to express displeasure at something she did or said by resorting to sick making flying, she always felt the safest in his bird. And suddenly he's holding her tight, as if he needs someone to support him because it probably just now registered that he failed to bring his brother-in-law home unscathed.

She doesn't really know how to react, not having lost anyone as close as Lorne must have been with his brother-in-law. Her brothers managed to get exemption from the draft on various health reasons and moving to Canada, respectively and she carefully avoided making too many friends down here, especially among the grunts. She never had anyone she needed to take care of so they would make it home safely.

"He wasn't supposed to be here," he murmurs into her neck and she moves to hold him tighter, make the anguish go from his voice and his entire bearing.

She doesn't say anything or maybe she murmured back some "It's okay"s and "I'm here"s but she'll never be sure, just as she'll never be sure whether she put a kiss or two to his temple or not but she'll always remember how she buries her hand in his hair, how it feels in its not-quite-grooming-standard-length sweat-and-grime-cakedness, how it smells of gun powder and jungle and pain.

She'll always remember how she never hears or feels him sob and yet sees tears streaking through the dirt on his face when he puts his forehead to hers.

It takes him a few moments to find the breath to say something and then he whispers, in a weird, ragged way, "I'm so glad you're still here."

She nearly laughs, a sad little laugh but then she remembers that she originally was slated for an assignment all across the country two days ago that she ended up practically selling to another reporter, off for some FOB reporting glory. She reaches up to touch his cheek, almost surprised to really find it wet. "My favorite taxi driver wasn't in town."

That makes him laugh, the same sad little laugh she almost gave him and he touches her cheek, still leaning with his forehead against hers. "And here I thought you didn't even like me."

"Same here, you idiot," she tells him as she moves to embrace him again and he lets her, "same here." Then she hugs him tight again, telling him in a whisper, "I'm glad you came back," and she hopes that he gets all the things she doesn't say, _can't_ say, not yet.

She hopes he gets that she's glad he made it back because he's one of the very few people making this hellhole bearable for her, that he's one of the very few people she probably couldn't make it through her tour without and she realizes that she just made the biggest mistake of all times.

She got attached in a war zone, not only to him but to him the most. And it's been going on for a while now. And all she did against it was trying to push him away and trying to drink and smoke and sneer her feelings for him away. And she was so, so stupid.

Then, just when she's about to disentangle herself from him, to walk out of this while she still can, save the last shred of detachment she still has left, he lifts his head again and his hands to her face and tells her, "I know, Laura. Goddammit, I _know_. Just don't…"

Even with all her leftover brain cells screaming at her to get the hell out of Dodge, all she can tell him is, "No," and miraculously, he understands. He understands the promise that neither of them could ever make sure to keep, not while they're still down here, both going on sorties and assignments into combat zones nearly daily. He understands and he nods and he makes the same promise, anyway.

They don't kiss, not in this night, at any case. They don't head for the BOQ, either or into some dark corner. They just keep sitting there at the edge of the helipad until the sun comes up and he has to go to Sheppard for a debriefing and for arranging compassionate leave and she has to go and find a way to accompany her favorite MedEvac team for the time that he's away.

They just sit on their crate and she cradles him when he falls asleep amidst telling her about the class of 1959's Golden Trio and she doesn't even care who's going to see them. Maybe she's just tired of 'Nam ruining everything good about her and the people she cares about and maybe she just wants to hold on to the one thing, the one _person_ that makes 'Nam not such a bad place, after all. And she's gonna do that, with every ounce of strength she still has left. What other choice does she have left, anyway?


	4. We'll Dance Until Morning

It's err still this Foreign Wars AU thing, and yes, this is the sequel to _Kennedy Made Him Believe_. It wasn't actually planned but then I watched _The '60s_ (the one from 1999 with Julia Stiles and Jerry O'Connel) and I started to watch _China Beach_, as well (I'm pretty sure Kavan Smith and Jaime Ray Newman would make a great Natch Austin and Colleen McMurphy in a remake, even with all the shit going down between Natch and McMurphy...) and somehow all those 60s songs just kind of appeared on my computer and before I knew it the one-shot had turned into a trilogy (so there's gonna be another part, hopefully soon). I'm sorry. This wasn't supposed to happen. Um.

Also, language warning. Evan's mouth is even filthier than Laura's. Who would have guessed.

* * *

#3 Kiss on the hand: longing

**We'll Dance Until Morning ('Til There's Just You And Me)**

"_If you believe in magic, come along with me  
We'll dance until morning 'til there's just you and me  
And maybe, if the music is right  
I'll meet you tomorrow, sort of late at night  
And we'll go dancing, baby, then you'll see  
How the magic's in the music and the music's in me."_

_The Lovin' Spoonful, "Do You Believe In Magic"_

It's almost funny, he thinks, that he still can't believe he's been thirty days out of country when the plane touches down at Cam Ranh airfield. He keeps wondering if that is how his father felt when they pulled him from the front in 1944 when Grandpa and Grandma Lorne died in a car accident and there was no one else to sort out all the things with the old farm and then send him back to the carnage a week later.

Okay.

Maybe he didn't. Because he's pretty sure that when Dad got back to Europe, he didn't keep obsessing about a little firecracker WAC Lieutenant waiting for him back in the dirt. He knows he should be thinking about a _lot_ of other things but it's Laura he keeps thinking about. Maybe… maybe because for a long time now, Laura's been the only positive thing he found to think about.

He shakes his head. Ever since the night at the Heliport he can't stop wondering if it's all just a dope induced fever dream, starting right down with the moment he heard Charlie say, "Evan… if you still want to punch me for coming here… you should do it now."

Ironic that of all the things Charlie could have said, _those_ were his last words. Needless to say, it wasn't what he told Anna.

Rubbing a hand over his eyes and trying desperately to forget the terrible sound Charlie's last breath had made in his brother-in-law's bloody chest, he nearly misses the stewardess telling them they arrived at their parking position and will be able to exit shortly. All around him, the excitement that had been contained until now starts to stir awake and all those teenagers around him are starting to become giddy. His luck that he had to catch that one flight full of USMC draftees more or less fresh out of high school out of McChord.

He tries to tune out the chatter and bullshitting all around him and the cynical running commentary in his head as he's unconsciously assessing who's going to make it and who isn't. The little geek with the BCGs who's so awfully quiet, he's probably gonna make it, provided he doesn't get the stupid notion he needs to prove something to someone somewhere down the road. The Don Juan who can't stop hitting on the stewardess, he's probably gonna keep the nurses busy, but not with his charm. The John Wayne who's seen _Flying Leathernecks_ one time too many, he's not gonna make it home. The…

_Leave it the fuck alone._

Thank God he's out of the plane only a short moment later, demonstratively ignoring the stewardess's blatant attempt to get the one guy over twenty-five on the entire flight to take her to one of the local clubs tonight. He's already got plans and they most certainly don't involve any women at all. Instead, they involve finding a hooch that serves some non-lethal alcohol and no customers he might know. They told him already at McChord that there's no way he's gonna make it to Ton Son Nhut before tomorrow and both Tom and Sheppard said there's no way they'd be able to squeeze Cam Ranh Bay into their itinerary to pick him up. Laura… well. Apparently, she's on some assignment or other somewhere in the Ia Drang area and he's resolved not to try to imagine any worst case scenarios

Anyway. Be it as it may, if he's gonna have to spend his first night back in-country with a bottle of Jack as his sole companion, so be it. Could be worse.

Reaching the baggage claim hut, he tries not to pace. He doesn't have anywhere to be except the R&R center at some point during the night today so there's no need to let the grunts all around him think the Air Force can't take a bit of waiting for their baggage.

He's about to do it anyway just moments before they finally start putting bags from his flight up and thank God they put his bag in with the last ones, so that he's one of the first people out the damn hut with the damn grunts and the damn chatter. God, how he's longing for that little lonely place and the bottle of Ja…

_Jesus H. Christ on a fucking tarmac._

For a moment, he thinks he must be imagining it – going neatly with his dope induced fever dream theory – but then some idiot Marine actually stops to check her out only to receive a pretty sure very unladylike snap and he knows that she's _really here_.

She's… a vision, actually. Stupid as that sounds but she's… she's so beautiful with her hair down and her little white local style dress fluttering a little in the breeze… and she's actually running at him at full tilt.

Whoa… _whoa_ that girl can jump. And hug. And wrap her legs around him. And holy Mother of God, can she _kiss_. He doesn't even hear the catcalls and whistles erupting all around them, he only sees her, hears her, feels her in that moment.

He tastes her, too and she tastes of smoke and cheap chocolate and Wrigley's. She tastes so _real_.

At home… at home everything tasted like sawdust and everything smelled of stale cleaner and here he is back in the dirt and it tastes like Laura and it smells like Laura and it's the best thing his senses have ever experienced. He sets her down and cups her face, to tell her "I'm so glad you're still here," in a voice like a drill sergeant after screaming at recruits for three days straight.

She smiles and it's as if the sun rises all over again. "I'm glad you came back." She gives him another peck on the lips and for a moment, only the two of them exist. No war, no casualties, just a guy and a girl and then the sound of a Phantom II drones all over them, as if the fighter jet is direct above them. She lets go of him, still smiling but he can see in the slight veneer over her eyes that she knows very well where they are and great, now he does, too.

"Welcome back," she says, a little belatedly and it makes him chuckle, probably the first real laugh since he left for Buckley AFB a month ago and he's so grateful that he has this one person left, this one person who still manages to make him laugh.

"Thanks for the welcome. Very enthusiastic." She grins at him. He can't help grinning back. Then, suddenly, he sobers up. "A lot better than the greeting I received back home."

She frowns and takes his hand. Apparently, she's gonna take full advantage of the fact that she's out of uniform and not often enough at Cam Ranh Bay for being universally known as That Female WAC LT With The Camera And The Big Mouth. "That bad, huh?"

He squeezes her hand and starts walking towards the R&R center. "Worse." He feels her tighten her grip as well. "People actually weren't above spitting this time."

"Huh," she says, "I always thought they were against the war, not the soldiers."

Shrugging and trying not to appear to be too fazed about the welcome he'd received at Stapleton in Denver, he replies, "Doesn't apply to all protestors, I guess."

She snorts with derision. "Do they still burn their draft cards?"

People had started doing that in 1964 and it had only increased over the last two years, even though it's officially forbidden since sometime in 1965. It's his turn to snort now, thinking back to one memorable occasion of visiting the campus of his sister's alma mater, Berkeley, two weeks ago. "Hell yeah." Before she can counter with something probably not so nice, he adds, "And good for them."

At that, she frowns. "Is it now?"

Strange that she would ask that. It's not like all she's doing is sitting around Le Van Loc, smoking, drinking and flirting all day. "Sure is. You really want even more nineteen-year-olds flooding into this country and leaving it in tin coffins?"

He sees a shadow wash across her face, this weird weariness he sees in so many of his fellow soldiers, the one she once said that makes it "hard to get up in the morning and stop drinking in the evening" and again he wishes she never even came here. Sure, he'd probably have never met her then, but she'd maybe also never have to look like this. "You're right, I guess. You're… Anyway… you got anything planned for tonight?" He wants to tell her what he'd thought when he'd left that plane but she's faster. "Except making really good friends with a bottle of Jack, I mean."

"Why aren't you in Intelligence, huh?" She stops, crossing her arms in front of her chest, giving him one of those withering looks he always found very sexy. Maybe that's why he kept annoying her. "I mean, you being psychic and all…"

She sticks out her tongue, making him want to kiss her senseless right again. "Flattery will get you nowhere. Now… go unpack and put some civvies on, I'll be waiting here."

It stupid and silly but he can't help it. He grins, saying, "Yes, ma'am," and damn, does her eye-rolling turn him on. Leave it to him to get horny the moment he gets _back_ to the dirt. Hoping the amount of being turned on is nowhere near visible, he shoulders his bag again, turning to go into the R&R center but throwing, "Try not to break too many bones as long as I'm in there," over his shoulder. The little indignant huff she lets out actually follows him inside, making him grin again. Weird that he can still do that, multiple times in the space of a few minutes, actually.

They assign him a two-bed-room and for some reason he's really glad that he sees that he's alone in there, at least for now. Putting his duffle on the bed, he actually considers disobeying her "order" and walk out in jungle greens but she'd probably give him her right hook or something, so he actually starts rummaging round for some civvies. But damn if Major Evan Lorne heeds his girlfriend's commands to the tee.

Girlfriend.

Huh.

Where the hell'd just that come from?

Anyway… it's been a long flight and a shower is definitely in order. And possibly a shave, as well. God, she's gonna hate having to wait.

And yep, she totally does. When he's exiting the R&R center after shower, shave and lingering inside for five more minutes just for good measure, she's pretty much looking ready to explode. Very adorable, that, actually. "Well," she says after staring at him for a full thirty seconds with a really mean look in her eyes, probably expecting him to blow up in flames or something, "at least you clean up nice."

He works very hard to keep a straight face, telling her, "Yeah, well, wish I could say the same… Jesus fucking _Christ_, Crackers!" That damn punch in the damn shoulder fucking _hurt_.

She raises an eyebrow, looking absolutely _not_ apologetic. "Crackers?" She even gives him air quotes and a questioning face and… yeah, where the hell did _that_ just come from?

Probably from the same place as the "girlfriend" from earlier and he really, really needs something to cover up his slip up. Because well, that's basically the first thing he thought about her when she climbed in his bird for the very first time. Red-haired, much too brazen for her own good and damn well crackers for coming to a place like 'Nam in the first place. He clears his throat. "Well, uh… seeing as you've spent enough time on aircraft to actually qualify as having "flight hours", we thought you needed a call sign."

She doesn't look convinced. "And _that's_ what you came up with? Since when are you guys British?"

Well. He shrugs and tries to take it all in stride. If faced with a dangerous animal, never show fear. "Not the guys, just me."

Still not buying it. Mh. "Since when are _you_ British?"

He can't help sighing. "It's… a long story. Just go with it?" One day he'll tell her about Mrs. Finch-Bosworth, the English teacher who came over with a GI from the UK with the soft spot for kids who were left fatherless after World War II. One day he'll tell her all about growing up without a father, all about getting married only a year after graduating to a girl he should never have married, for the sake of both of them, all about feeling more at home in 'Nam than he has felt back stateside in a very long time. One day will be the day.

Just not today.

And, just to prove his point about Laura possibly being if not the only good, then certainly the best thing about 'Nam, she just rolls her eyes, disentangles her arms in front of her chest and takes his hand again. "Come on, I want to get to the USO club before those Marines drink away all the potable alcohol. If they're anything like those back at TSN…"

She half drags him, telling him about she had this local club all scouted out and ready, only to be told no one would be going out today because of the warnings they'd received and that she hadn't wanted to jinx his first night back in-country and how hard it had been to keep Tom and Sheppard to keep quiet about her little plan to surprise him and how Reece had made her wear this damn dress that shows off the legs that usually are obscured by damn jungle green pants and he lets her.

He knows he shouldn't be here, shouldn't be enjoying himself with her, getting to annoy her by taking away her precious cigarette mid-drag – he knows she thinks he hates her smoking but the truth is, taking her cigs away under the pretense of propriety had been one of the only ways he could get close to her, possibly even actually _touch_ her and he just can't let go of that habit – but he just can't help it.

She's here and he's here and they're wearing civvies and halfway through their visit to the USO club someone puts a dime in the jukebox and 'Unchained Melody' starts floating through the room and he finds himself getting up from the barstool and actually leaning down to put a kiss on her hand, just like his mother had taught him to in one of her pre-war moods and when he holds her in his arms, swaying a little to the lilting tones of the Righteous Brothers, a deep, nameless longing fills him, filling him with a pain even worse than that of feeling one of his best friends slip away in his arms. A longing for things to always be like this, never change, this moment frozen in time. A longing…

"Me, too, Cookie. Me, too," she says, her voice nearly unintelligible over the din, nearly breaking when she calls him by half his call sign and all he can do is lean down and gently kiss that spot in the crook of her, right above where her dog tags are always showing through, just like now. He knows how it looks, two Americans in civvies with the chains of their dog tags shining through here and there, embracing each other on the dance floor but right now, he doesn't give a fucking _damn_ about that because there is no other place he'd rather be than right here, right now and he'll hold on to all of that until his last damn breath. What else is there left for him to do, anyway?


	5. With No Direction Home

Righty-o, this might be a rather difficult chapter because it deals with racism among soldiers and not so good ways to deal with it from their (white) superiors. It was difficult to write (seeing as I am _not_ an American and had to learn about this from research and talking to my wonderful beta **mackenziesmomma**) and I'm genuinely afraid that I might have done it wrong and this ends up on fanfic_rants or something so if you think there would have been better ways to write it, please don't hesitate to tell me. I am always open to constructive criticism and I value it very highly.

PS.: If anyone would like to know if Sergeant Meyers is African-American in the "canon" _Protect and Survive_ 'verse, the answer is yes, he is. I didn't change his skin tone just for effects for this story. And yes, I'm considering another story from his point of view, I'll just have to think it through before going about writing it.

* * *

#13 Turning your ring: stay faithful to me

**With No Direction Home (Like a Complete Unknown)**

_"How does it feel  
How does it feel  
To be on your own  
With no direction home  
Like a complete unknown  
Like a rolling stone?"_

_Bob Dylan, "Like a Rolling Stone"_

"So… why _exactly_ is Lorne's crew calling you "Crackers" now, Lieutenant?" She grins, trying to look enigmatical but probably failing spectacularly and ending up with maniacal or something.

"That, sir, is between Major Lorne's crew and me." Sheppard snorts.

"Yeah, well, at least you fit right in… with _Squeaky_ and _Fortune Cookie_." That, in turn makes _her_ snort and Sheppard's gives her another grin, one of those that has half the female population on post in vapors every time they see him do it. She's been wondering for a while now if it's just her or if he's doing it exponentially often around her when Evan is in the vicinity, knowing _full well_ that straight-and-narrow Evan Lorne has a decidedly jealous streak.

In fact, when Evan heard that she'd be flying with Sheppard today because he's on call and Sheppard just took over transporting medical supplies to her newest assignment of interviewing GIs at some firebase upcountry…

"…stay the hell away from _my sergeant_." Huh, what… Evan?

"I ain't gonna do _shit_, you little hippie motherfucker." Whoa. Whoa, who _is_ that kid with the Southern drawl and why does he think he can actually…

"I think that's still _Major_ Little Hippie Motherfucker, _sir_, to you, Baker." And that was… Meyers? She blinks, tries to take in the scene in front of her. They're at the back of one of the tool sheds at the heliport and in the shadows that the big lights throw she can see Evan and his medic and some kid she doesn't know with a decidedly hillbilly drawl and… is that what she _thinks_ it is?

She turns to Sheppard but he just shakes his head, carefully trying not to draw attention to them and she tries to concentrate on the scene again when she suddenly hears Hillbilly say, "You shut your stinking nigger trap. Just wait until we get to…" and suddenly all hell breaks loose.

Later she will never be fully able to reconstruct what _exactly_ happened but all of a sudden, Evan has Hillbilly shoved against the wall of the tool shed, his fist grabbing the front of Hillbilly's shirt and pinning the guy to the wall and he's scowling and she has never heard a more frightening tone from anyone _ever_ when Evan practically hisses, "I will never, _never_ see, hear or hear about you harassing any of my crew ever again or I will _kill_ you. Do you understand?" Transfixed by the fact that he looks and sounds so different that he's actually a whole different person, it takes her all until she hears him repeat, "Do you _understand_, you little piece of racist, bigoted…" to actually _react_.

By then, both Sheppard and Meyers seem to have gotten over their momentary paralysis as well and react instantly; Meyers prying Evan away from Hillbilly and Sheppard reacting fast enough to catch Hillbilly before he can plant retaliation on Evan's face.

Hillbilly keeps screaming obscenities – interesting how he manages to lose control so easily in front of a "lady" when those Southeners usually like to demonstrate their chivalry at every turn – at Evan and Meyers until Sheppard puts his foot down and tells the guy, "If you don't stop that _right fucking now_, I _promise_ you every dust-off chopper in the entire _country_ will be busy when you and your sorry ass racist friends need another extraction. Your choice, _Sergeant_."

When Hillbilly doesn't stop right away – apparently, he wants to make a point and demonstrate just _how_ stupid a guy can be – Sheppard gives him a good shake himself and then pushes him away, practically spitting out, "Get _lost_, Baker."

To her amazement, Hillbilly actually takes Sheppard's advice and stumbles away, mumbling something about going to "the LT" with that but the guys have already stopped paying attention to him. There's a moment of uncomfortable silence in which Evan finally starts to look like himself again, Meyers looks decidedly unhappy and Sheppard shakes his head. "Goddammit, Lorne."

The man she's sleeping with for two and a half months now shakes his head himself and helplessly shrugs. "I just… I…"

There's a dejected and very confused look on his face and if anyone ever asks her why she did what she's about to do, she'll tell them the truth. She'll tell them that seeing him like that just gave her heart a very real, very painful squeeze. One of those she'd painstakingly tried to avoid when she'd set her boots on the ground eight months ago. She clears her throat. "Sir… I think I'll better take care of this."

Now they're all looking at her and probably for the first time in her entire life, she feels terribly self-conscious. "Lieutenant, I don't think…"

Self-conscious. _Not_ intimidated. She nearly scowls. "I _said_ I will take care of this, _sir_."

After another moment of indecision, Sheppard finally throws his hands up and stalks away after telling Evan, "I'll deal with it if he really goes to his CO but this isn't over, Major. We'll talk about this. _ASAP_."

Evan just mutely nods and she takes a tentative step towards him. He doesn't react and she diverts her gaze to Meyers, trying to gauge his stand in all of this. And yeah, it's what she was afraid of. The expression on his face… she's not sure if she's ever seen a more disappointed man than Master Sergeant Will Meyers in this moment. Evan must have seen it, too. "Sergeant…"

"If you don't mind, sir, I'd prefer to fight my own battles in the future." Well. That was probably the worst set down in the history of set downs, and the _worst_ thing about it is that it's pretty much deserved, too. She swallows, and Meyers looks like he wants to add something but in the end, he just nods at her with a "Ma'am," and then turns to go, as well.

It takes Evan all until Meyers is gone to move again, walking over to the wall of the shed he just pushed Hillbilly against and slumping against it, sliding down until he's sitting on the ground, his elbows on his knees and grinding the heels of his hands in his eyes. Her heart aching, she walks over to him and slides down next to him, angling her legs the same way.

They sit there, in silence with their shoulders almost touching, he fiddling with his Academy ring, turning it on his finger, making her insane, for at least a few minutes until she says quietly, "He was right, you know."

His only reaction, at first, is to tip his head back and lean it against the wall, his eyes closed. Sighing silently, she takes a scrunched and well-worn packet of Lucky Strikes and the accompanying Zippo – a gift from her father upon graduating OCS – out of her breast pockets, fumbles out one of her last cigs and lights it up and yep… there he goes again.

If she didn't secretly love how attuned they're to each other by now, she'd probably actually hit him square in the face every time he simply takes the cig out of her hand without ever waiting for her approval. Today… well. His head is still tipped back and his eyes are still closed when he exhales audibly and then drawls, "Damn, still no dope."

Oh good _God_. She actually moves to punch him in the arm and forcefully snatches the cig out of his fingers, ignoring his protests and practically growling, "Listen, Puff, if you wanna go back to your Land of Lies, how about you ask the damn Army Nurses?"

"Fuck, Laura, I wasn't…" God, she's so done with it, with _everything_ from 'Nam to men who always try to deflect her and in a fit of rage, she tries to jump up, only to feel his hand clamp down on your shoulder firm enough to make her sit back down.

She doesn't look at him, though because honestly, she's had it with the "Cadman and dope are made for each other" jokes she gets to hear all over 'Nam and she's just so fed up with hearing it from _him_, of all people. She shakes her head and takes a deep drag herself. "Honestly, Lorne… what the _fuck_ is wrong with you?"

Next to her, she feels him move again and when she sees him reaching for her cig from the corner of her eye, she's tempted to stab the damn thing into his hand and be done with it but she's not _that_ far gone, yet. She lets him have it, in the end. He's silent again, taking one drag, then another and another and just when she thinks he'll probably just keep sitting there, smoking and being an ass, he says, in a weirdly detached voice, "Have you ever seen a man slowly bleed out and die?"

Oh.

Oh _God_.

She struggles with something to say but in the end, she doesn't get to do it, anyway because he just plows on in that odd flat voice. "Charlie didn't look so bad when we found them. He had a couple bullet wounds, nothing too tragic. Meyers patched him up. Had a bit of trouble with the VC but otherwise, things were fine."

"Evan…"

He shakes his head, not looking at her and practically hanging on to that cig for dear life. "Then, suddenly, couple hours or so later, he starts wheezing, says "Hey, I think something's wrong…" and Meyers takes another look at him. Lifts his shirt and whoa, he's got a bruise the size of… _Florida_ or something, all over his chest."

And all the time, he sounds as if he's talking about some random GI, not his _goddamn brother-in-law_. It's scaring the living daylights out of her.

"It took him another hour to die. All the time, he made this sound, when he breathed in and out and in and out…" He makes a terrible wheezing sound to demonstrate and she wants to gag him, hit him until he's unconscious, _anything_ to make him _shut the hell up_. "He said… his last words… he said that if I still wanted to him for coming here, I should do it now and then he just… he…" He coughs, the nearly done cig shaking violently between his fingers. "He drowned in his own blood."

There's nothing she can reply to that that won't sound tacky or trite or useless. So all she does is gently take the cigarette away from his hand and put it out in the dirt next to her. As she does so, she notices that it wasn't the cough that made the cig shake in his hand and she quietly takes the empty hand in her own, to lace her fingers through his and hold his hand between them. She can feel him holding on for dear life.

And yet the only thing she does find worth saying is, "He was still right."

The laugh he gives her sounds desperate but he keeps holding her hand, actually moving it to his mouth and putting a surprisingly soft kiss on her fingers. "What was I supposed to do, Crackers? Let that little… piece of _shit_ and his shitty little friends keep on harassing my crew member?" The way he says crew member, it sounds more like "one of my _family_".

She refrains from sighing, simply leans in a little closer, so that their knees are touching and that every inch further to her right would have her sit in his lap. "No, of course not. But…"

"Did you know that there's KKK on this base?" Well… no, she didn't, actually. Which worries her. She's a reporter, she's supposed to _know_ such things, isn't she? "I don't have any substantial proof but Baker's almost sure as hell part of that. Am I supposed to wait for burning crosses in front of the NCO quarters before I react?"

She rubs a hand over her eyes, feeling so damn tired again, right out of the blue. It happened less ever since he's back. If she felt tired in the last month, it was usually because she didn't spend most of her nights sleeping, or at least not sleeping alone. Unable to keep holding on to him, she pries her hand lose from his and hugs herself briefly. She keeps leaning in, though. "Evan… I know that you meant well but… what do you think is gonna happen to him in the barracks now?"

It's not that she has ever actually _seen_ anything she's insinuating now, at least not with male soldiers, but she's seen her fair share of nasty things going on in women's barracks during OCS and her first station in the US. She has seen what a herd of furies did to a black female NCO after her white superior dared standing up for her to them. She doesn't even know if the NCO is still serving after _that_. She has no illusions about men being any better at handling what Evan just did.

He's leaning forward, dropping his forehead on his knees, his hands folded in his neck and she's tempted to reach out to him and rub his back soothingly but for some reason she'd rather leave him alone right now. It's probably the wrong decision, seeing as she left him alone about his brother-in-law's death, too and look what came out of _that_ but for some reason all she can is watch him struggling through everything that happened, ever since that day at the heliport.

After a minute or maybe ten spent in that position, he leans back against the wall, with his hands still behind his head. Suddenly, he looks as if he just aged five years. "I really, really messed up, didn't I?"

She just nods and leans her head on his shoulder, somehow insanely glad that she feels him putting an arm around her shoulder, squeezing very lightly. Carefully, she puts a kiss on his jaw before putting her head on his shoulder again. "All the way to FUBAR, Cookie."

There's a strange… jerking motion from him, as if he just gave a laugh. Or sobbed. She feels him put his other arm around her as well, draw her closer to him, so that she can bury her face in the crook of his neck and snake her arms around his waist, draw in the scent she's become so intimately familiar with over the last couple months. Machine oil and aftershave and the smoke from her cigarettes all rolled into one, and she feels the beads of his dog tags' chain dig into her cheek and the damp cotton of his regulation shirt under her hands, before she sneaks the one on his back under the shirt to feel equally damp, hot skin and a scar from a training accident years ago.

His arms around her tighten and his mouth wanders from the kiss he put against the top of her head down towards her ear and into the crook of her neck before he whispers in a broken voice, "I'm lost, Laura. Ever since Charlie died, I'm lost and I have no fucking idea how to get home."

At least he finally admitted it. At least he finally confirmed her suspicions about what was causing out of character behavior like his outburst against Sergeant Hillbilly an hour or so ago. It doesn't make anything better and she hopes to God he won't lose another friend, another _member of his family_, due to the idiocy of thinking he could shut away his grief and guilt in a locker, never to open it again. But at least he opened that locker. Maybe they're not completely fucked yet.

She reaches up one hand to bury it in his hair, like she did on that first night at the heliport. She buries it deep and holds him close and she tells him, "We're gonna find a way back, Cookie and we're gonna find it together," because she has no idea how else to tell him not to lose faith in himself, in her, in the universe.

"Just don't let me go off the deep end ever again," he rasps and she wishes she could promise him she won't, wishes she had that power to take away all his pain and despair and grief and replace it with nothing but the deep, all-encompassing feeling of _belonging_ she feels when she's with him, the feeling of a warm blanket around her shoulders and a cup of hot cocoa when the winds are raging across frozen Lake Michigan, the feeling of _being home_.

Just barely managing not to sob, she shakes her head. "I can't promise you that." She wishes she wouldn't have had to say that. She wishes this war wouldn't have taught her how to be so brutally honest. "But if you ever do go off the deep end again, I'll be there to set you straight." It's the least she can do for him, the least she can tell him. Anything further and she'd have to use _those three words_. She's not ready for those yet, and maybe she'll never be but she'll always be ready to stand by what she just told him.

He takes a moment, a moment to mess up the last semblance of regulation pinned up hair she still had left after a harrowing supply flight with Sheppard by cradling the back of her neck with his hand, the feeling of his sweaty, calloused palm against the base of her head giving her decidedly out of place goose bumps of arousal. "I wouldn't want it any other way."

She snorts, even gives a hollow laugh. "Yeah, you better."

Amazingly, she feels him echo that laugh, mostly sure it isn't another dry sob.

Somehow, that also seems to break the spell and slowly, he disentangles himself from their embrace, leaning his back against the wall but keeping his arm around her shoulders and for some indeterminable reason, the urge to light a cigarette is strong enough that she actually sacrifices another one of her precious last bits, taking a far too long drag nestled against his shoulder.

For a while, there's nothing but the sound of choppers landing and taking off, the distant din from Le Van Loc and the occasional dirty joke and guffawing laughter from around the tool shed floating through the night air. At some point, she does crawl into his lap, settles down with her back to his chest, between his legs and he hugs her around her shoulders, occasionally letting go with one hand to take a drag himself. By now, she's seriously considering to stop smoking altogether just so she won't keep on corrupting him like that.

Then again, it's his choice and if he keeps doing that, maybe she's just gonna start charging him or something.

Through all that, neither of them talks and she knows she just should let it go but something tells her that this isn't over yet. Not by a long shot. She sighs soundlessly. "You still gotta talk to your Sergeant, you know."

"I _know_, Laura," he says and nuzzles her neck, "God knows I do." He leans his head against hers and the heaviness in his voice when he says, "As soon as I find a way out of this clusterfuck…" makes her reach up and behind her to mess around with hair and draw him further down and kiss him.

He complies and she's glad to taste him again, like every time. In the short time they're actually in this relationship, she has come to associate this taste of coffee and toothpaste and smoke with being in an embrace like the current one, nestled firmly against him in a little cocoon that sometimes not even the sounds of war can penetrate. She can only hope that he feels even a fraction of that whenever they kiss.

When they break the kiss, she uses the opportunity and cranes her neck enough to be able to look him into the eye and tell him, "As soon as _we_ can find a way out of this clusterfuck. We're in this together, Cookie. You're not gonna get rid of me so easily."

That makes him laugh, a real, genuine laugh without that terrible sadness and hollowness attached to it that his laugh had ever since his brother-in-law died and he squeezes her shoulders and puts a kiss to her temple, telling her, "And thank _God_ for that."

She has to laugh herself at that and leans back against him, actually relaxing for the first time today, maybe even in a long time and she _knows_ that today things just got a lot more complicated and a lot worse than what they already were. But sometimes, sometimes things need to get a lot worse before they can better. Maybe this is one of them. Maybe now that it got really worse, he can start getting better and make it better this time around and possibly even unfuck the mess he made about Meyers and Sergeant Hillbilly.

He _has_ to because damn, that was just stupid but she's still here and she'll stick around for as long as he wants her to and she'll help him with everything she has to get back whatever he lost when he felt his brother-in-law slip away in his arms. What else is there to do when you love someone, after all?


	6. So I Came in Here

So. Sparky (that's right, I actually did write John/Elizabeth, guys! :D). OMG. Like, the first time ever I'm writing this, as I just realized. Over five years of writing Stargate and I never even once wrote Sparky. So, first try and it's more implied than actual relationship but anyway... what do you think? I always found Elizabeth extremely complex to write and I hope I got her dialogue right. Um. Opinions, anyone?

* * *

#07 Coughing or clearing one's throat: I love you

**So I Came in Here (And Your Long-Time Curse Hurts)**

"_It was raining from the first  
And I was dying there of thirst  
So I came in here  
And your long-time curse hurts  
But what's worse  
Is this pain in here  
I can't stay in here."_

_Bob Dylan, "Just Like a Woman"_

He knows he shouldn't be here. He knows he should be back at the base, pouring over paperwork and working out a way to keep his XO from getting his ass fried for the little stunt he pulled an hour ago. And yet, the first thing he did after keeping Lorne from beating the crap out of that little shit Baker was commandeering the next best vehicle he could find and take it to a little backstreet apartment complex in the expatriate quarter of Saigon.

So here he is, yet again. Standing in front of Elizabeth's door, waiting for her to open it and for the hundredth time wondering if this will be the day she'll have decided that she won't put up with him anymore.

"Good evening, John."

Obviously, it isn't.

He smiles. "Hi, Liz." She gives him a deadpan look – Jesus Christ, is it a fucking _requirement_ for women to be able to do that with their face to be allowed to go to 'Nam? – and crosses her arms in front of her chest, leaning against the doorframe. He holds up the bottle in his hand. "I, uh, brought booze?"

At that, she rolls her eyes and makes a mock invitational gesture and he follows her inside her dingy apartment. There's only one bed/living room, a bathroom and a kitchenette and a lazily rotating fan on the ceiling. And, possibly, his favorite place in all of 'Nam: the tiny balcony that only fits a French looking rickety café table and two wrought iron chairs. It's looking out into the backyard, a rather gloomy and not exactly clean – and definitely _smelly_ – affair but at least you can actually understand what your opposite is saying and the constant noise from the street in front of the house is a little dulled.

"So," he says and casually saunters over to her, waving his bottle of booze at her, "glasses or bottle tonight?"

"Neither," she simply says and sticks a mug of coffee in his hand while simultaneously taking the bottle out of the other.

He makes a face. "Stick in the mud."

However, he doesn't continue to criticize her action, knowing full well that she'll only give him one of those looks that will make him feel like he didn't turn in his homework on time and just makes his way over to the balcony, taking his usual place. It's a damp and dark night and he can hear the sounds of TSN Airfield in the distance. Taking a sip from his mug, he can't help but grin. Damn, she still makes a helluva cup of coffee.

He has known Elizabeth since May 1942, when they'd carted them from Daws Hill to London for some diplomatic function or other. He'd been a green Lieutenant, part of VIII Bomber Command and absolutely positive that he was invincible and she'd been an embassy clerk, straining against the barriers the Foreign Office put on women in those years. They'd just shared one dance and they'd never had had any intention of deepening the acquaintance but somehow they'd kept running into each other. By the time the next war had come rolling around, he was almost disappointed to hear that she'd gotten married and had had to leave the Foreign Service.

And then her husband had gotten himself killed in a helicopter crash on his way to one of the MASH units up in the Korean highlands that had needed a dentist for some reason or other and three months later she'd been back in the Service, working in the embassy in Seoul. He's never gotten up the nerve to ask if that had been her preferred coping strategy or if she'd just been waiting to get back into the game.

Twenty-four years. He has known Elizabeth Weir Wallace for twenty-four years now and he still tries to be nonchalant when she puts her mug on the table and sits down opposite him, saying, "Okay, John. What's the matter with you?"

He raises his eyebrows. "What, I can't just visit my favorite Foreign Service officer without a special reason?"

"John Sheppard," she says with that wry and vaguely flirty look that has been driving him mad for as long as he has known her, "I have seen you with your pants down more than once, figuratively _and_ literally. You really think you can hide anything from _me_?"

Damn, that's just not fair. Most of all because she's _right_, both about having seen him with his pants down – that one time she and her boss visited RAF High Wycombe and they'd entered the medical building in the exact same moment that he'd had to cross that corridor from one examination room to the next with nothing more than a hospital gown had been especially embarrassing – and about him not being able to hide anything from her. The first person to learn about the engagement that Nancy had cancelled just a month before he could get back home from his 1948/49 tour in Berlin had been Elizabeth and it hadn't been because he'd _told_ her about that.

He smirks. "I can still try, can't I?"

She gives him a completely serious look and takes a sip from her coffee. "What's going on, Colonel?"

Right. Shit's getting serious if she's using his rank without any sarcasm in her voice and he feels himself yearning for one of those cigarettes Cadman keeps smoking. But he quit when Nancy and he got engaged and he's gonna stay with that, for whatever stupid reason he doesn't really like to investigate. So instead of pulling out a cig and lighting it, he puts his boots up on the railing of Elizabeth's balcony and decides to be honest with her. She won't stop nagging, anyway.

People never believe him that she can be terribly bullheaded when she really wants to know something but he still has no idea what she's actually doing at the embassy and he already figured in the Forties that "embassy clerk" most probably was just a more harmless word for "OSS operative". Ever since Moore and DeLisle were the only ones who didn't look much surprised when she once made her way into Le Van Loc, he's pretty sure that she's not an unknown quantity at the CIA, either. _Of course_ she won't stop nagging. "It's Lorne."

You know, one of the good things of having known each other for such a long time is that more often than not, it only takes two words to explain an entire clusterfuck. "Still brooding over his brother-in-law's death?"

Yeah, if it were just that. "Worse." She raises an eyebrow, and it's amazing that this is all she needs to show him for him to know that she's genuinely interested in whatever he has to say. "He turned from brooding to aggressive."

"Sorry to hear that." And he knows that she _is_. After Nancy broke off their engagement in 1949 _and fucking got married to his brother_ only six months later, Elizabeth Weir is the only woman, the only _person_ whom he lets past his defenses. Sometimes he has a sneaking suspicion that it's the same with her, ever since Wallace got himself killed. "Did he assault anyone?"

He can't help but snort. "Hell yeah." He knows he shouldn't be cussing around a lady like Elizabeth but damn, it's not helpful that she always takes it in stride. "Sergeant Baker, one of the assholes that kept bothering his Sergeant and a couple more of my black Airmen."

She shrugs and he's almost positive that he knows what she'll say next. "I'm sure whatever Baker did, it was worth getting thrashed for."

Yep, there it is. Elizabeth was always fervently liberal, always advocating to sort things out without violence but never above at least considering to use force when talking didn't get anyone anywhere. There's a reason he always finds her again in a war zone; one beyond her probably being more than just one Foreign Service officer of many. He sighs. "Nah, he didn't thrash him." Although he'd probably have found it hard not to applaud Lorne if he _had_. "Just pushed him into a wall and threatened to kill him when he caught Baker insulting his Sergeant."

That gets him a vaguely amused look and raised eyebrows. "And you didn't give him a medal?"

Of course not, although he wished he could have. As it is, he now has to find a way to both protect Lorne against any retaliation he might get from Baker's equally racist piece of shit superior officer and make sure they don't find a burning cross or worse in front of Meyers's quarters. Or _in_ Meyers's quarters. He shakes his head. "No, I left him with his WAC reporter to sort it out."

She smirks. Elizabeth Weir Wallace actually _smirks_, wry amusement written all across her face. "Next best thing, of course."

He tries to give her his best impression of an RAF officer, the one he learned in three years in High Wycombe and could always make her laugh with. "Of _course_, dear."

As predicted, it makes her snort with laughter and as always seeing the refined Foreign Service officer she usually plays do something so decidedly _un_ladylike makes him want to do _decidedly indecent_ things to her. And by God, _with_ her. Jesus fucking Christ.

At least she does him the favor of sobering up pretty fast and ask something as difficult as, "Do you think they're in love?"

Helluva question, that one. It's been going on for what, three months now, maybe even longer. And yeah, Lorne didn't actually think he could fool anyone with that "Keep away the WAC from me if you know what's good for you" act while simultaneously making sure he was the only available option whenever the Lieutenant needed a ride, did he now? Cadman… God, Cadman could make _no one_ believe that she didn't realize that she practically had season tickets to Lorne's chopper. Why they started sleeping with each other only three months ago was, is and will forever remain one of the universe's greatest mysteries to him. A little helplessly, he shrugs. "Damned if I know, Liz."

Usually, she would let it go at this point but today something must have bitten her because she keeps on insisting, "Yes, but do you _think_ they are?"

He wonders where that is suddenly coming from because he has no idea why she might be interested in the love lives of two officers that are more mere acquaintances than anything else to her. For a crazy, stupid moment of wishful thinking he even wonders if they're still talking about Lorne and Cadman here. "I kind of hope they aren't. Love's got no place in a combat zone."

"No, I imagine it doesn't." It doesn't surprise him that she'd say that. What does surprise him is the tone she said it in. A little distractedly and disappointedly, something you don't get to hear from Elizabeth Weir Wallace, ever.

One of her fingers – the ring finger, the one where the ring Wallace put on it used to sit until about ten years ago – of her left hand rhythmically taps on the table, nail on metal, making it sound like a telegraph sending a message in Morse and he makes the conscious decision not to listen too closely.

Instead, he looks at her, really looks at her for the first time in probably years. He doesn't even know when he stopped _looking_ at her; maybe when he got engaged to Nancy or when she got married to Wallace or when they were suddenly both free again and the possibilities of that made him choke whenever he tried thinking about them.

Maybe it was when he decided he didn't want to see curls that still make all the Marines on TSN think that they just hollered after a twenty-year-old and the hands that always remind him of that first and only dance in May 1942 and the legs that will never cease killing him. At some point, he decided he just didn't want to, _couldn't_ see all that anymore or he'd do something exceedingly stupid, something that had the potential to ruin a twenty-four year friendship. Just thinking about that feels _way_ worse than flying SAR under RPG and small arms fire, in a moonless night, with his co-pilot passed out from a bullet wound.

"Well, then, it's glasses after all, I guess." Mh? He blinks. "I'm still not drinking straight from the bottle, Sheppard." God, she's beautiful when she's being all sardonic and superior. He yet again manages to clear his throat and not tell her _I love you_.

Instead he calls after her, "Just don't tell me ever again that I'm "seducing" you to drink, Weir!" Her laughter drifts over from the kitchenette and once again he's well aware of the fact that he's probably the only one who can get away with calling her by her maiden name. He just wonders if she's aware of that as well.

She comes back to the balcony, setting two glasses and a bottle of booze – definitely _not_ the cheap rotgut he'd waved at her earlier, as it's actually in a _cut glass_ bottle – down on the table and then sits back down. Almost methodically, she fills their glasses and then raises hers. Following suit, he clinks his glass to hers.

"To war zones."

"To war zones."

It's been the same toast, ever since London 1945, VE-Day, the same ritual, sometimes in company just like in London or in Berlin 1948, sometimes just the two of them, like in Seoul 1953 or Washington D.C. 1962. At some point, they always end up on a balcony or in a restaurant or by a river, clinking glasses and toasting to war zones. If he's honest, those are the only moments that make going to war still bearable after twenty-four years of wars and crises and "police actions". He's not going to ruin that by something as stupid as falling in love in a combat zone.

Or rather by admitting to himself that he fell in love long ago, in a different time, a different combat zone, with a twenty-year-old overachiever Radcliffe graduate trying to make her way in the men's world of Foreign Service and just kept on loving her to this very day, because he simply doesn't know how to stop.

And that's why he doesn't get up and leave, never to come back, as he should. That's why he just keeps sitting here, with his feet up on the railing, drinking her booze and staying far too long to keep to his required sleeping hours. He'd just spend them with nightmares and time not spend with Elizabeth is time wasted, anyway, so what the hell. No one really needs sleep, after all but damn, does he need to spend time with Elizabeth. And he's very intent on making the most of it, even in a fucking combat zone. What's left to do when you just can't stop loving someone, anyway?


End file.
